Abstract

We report on the production of a continuous, slow, and cold beam of atoms with an extremely high flux of , a transverse temperature of , and a longitudinal temperature of . We describe the apparatus created to generate the atom beam. Hot atoms are emitted from a rubidium candlestick atomic beamsource and transversely cooled and collimated by a long atomic collimator section, boosting overall beam flux by a factor of 50. The Rb atomic beam is then decelerated and longitudinally cooled by a long Zeeman slower.

Received 29 March 2005Accepted 22 August 2005Published online 03 October 2005

Acknowledgments:

This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, ARO-MURI, and NASA. One of the authors (C.S.) was supported by a National Defense Science and Engineering Grant sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. The authors would like to acknowledge D. Rogers, J. MacArthur, and A. Sliski for invaluable technical expertise and thank W. Hänsel for useful discussions and valuable support.